


Old World

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2018-04-13 22:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4540518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry could say with full confidence that he hated every type of magical transportation, but time travel was the worst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old World

**Author's Note:**

> This fic doesn't feel complete to me, but it's been in my files for _years_. I'm slapping it up as is and calling it quits. 
> 
> Backdated to its original FFN posting date.

Harry James Potter could say with full confidence that he hated every type of magical transportation. With the floo system, there was always a small part of him that wondered if just maybe the green flames would burn him like regular flames or fiendfyre, or if he would end up in some unknown destination once again. Portkeys, every single one of them, felt like they might take him to Little Hangleton's graveyard, even almost a decade after Voldemort's death. Broomsticks were great for Quidditch, but fly on them for a few hours and your muscles started protesting, badly. Not to mention the fact that their anti-freezing charms were always a bit wonky. And hippogriffs, though great animals and faster than broomsticks, were always happy to go off course, since there was no way to tell a mammoth creature with sharp teeth to go your way. Even Buckbeak, who rather liked Harry, liked following bird flocks and rogue snitches better than listening to Harry.

Time travel, though was the worst. The first time he'd traveled in time, he'd used a Time-Turner, and those were practically made for comfort. No spinning, no wooziness, no mind-numbing fear that your body would be torn apart—but also no ability to change what you knew to be true. Using another method on his second attempt at traveling in time, he'd decided Time-Turners were a top of the line Firebolt compared to a sixteenth century broomstick: so, so much safer. This time, it had felt like he was being squeezed until he was a speck of dust and thrown into space with a godly slingshot, then falling down with the feeling that he was going to break every bone in his body. The only thing he could do was think of broomsticks and Teddy in order to stave off the terrible feeling of freefalling into nothingness.

But, speaking of his body…

"Ow," Harry groaned, rubbing the back of his head. He could feel an aching bump forming despite the copious amount of cushioning charms he'd put on himself, Teddy, and their belongings. Too soon, he started to feel delayed nausea coming on. Even when after a Weasley family Christmas (and its copious amounts of nutmeg) his head had never ached this badly.

His hands met dirt and leaves when he tried to push himself up. With an expression of surprise, he patted the dirt and looked around. He, Teddy (who, thankfully, looked completely fine), and his trunk were in a dark forest, far away from the small house that they had been in only moments before. Harry was unable to stifle a smile despite his headache. They had done the impossible!

"That," Teddy declared as he jumped off of Harry's trunk. "Was so awesome. Let's do it again!"

The pounding in Harry's head only became worse at Teddy's loud voice. "Let's not, Teddy. Lumos." Under the light of Harry's wand, Teddy looked the same as ever, wearing dirt-smudged children's robes, his hair in a bright green, and thin wire-frame glasses resting on his freckled nose. "Are you alright? I didn't think we'd crash so hard, kiddo," he said with a grimace. He checked Teddy over for bruising and brushed some dirt out of his hair. Their clothes, wrinkled and dirty, weren't salvageable anymore. Harry had learned enough cleaning and upkeep charms from Andromeda to last a lifetime, but there wasn't enough time to spend getting the both of them presentable.

"Yes, but I'm tired," Teddy answered, leaning a little on Harry. Harry hugged him close for a moment, then let go, using his wand to check out their surroundings.

"We'll find a place to stay soon. We'll have to, because this looks a lot like the Forbidden Forest," he said dismally.

Life really did have it out for him, Harry decided. He hadn't been in many forests in his twenty-five years of life, but the Forbidden Forest had a few markers of difference. Namely, centaur hoof-prints and a pack of wolves, said to have been descended from two werewolves mating at full moon. Harry could hear them howling in the distance, and resolved to walk the opposite way, which was likely toward Hogwarts. What little natural light there was kept fading as evening set in, and Harry decided they should quickly leave before it became fully dark.

"Now, what do you say about—" hearing something behind him, Harry looked around just in case an acromantula appeared, but didn't notice anything "—finding a some nice, warm beds in Hogsmeade, away from this lovely forest." With the hand that wasn't warily holding up his wand, Harry picked up his trunk. He kept a wary eye on the forest around them. Although he hadn't been in the Forbidden Forest for nearly five years, his memories of his past adventures were all too clear. And from the viewpoint of an adult and a parent, the forest was much too dangerous for them to dawdle.

Teddy nodded. "Do you hear that?" he asked, shivering a little and pointing ahead. "It's coming from over there."

The row of trees in front of them seemed silent to Harry's ears, but he tightened his grip on his wand all the same. "What do you hear?"

"Someone's talking," Teddy replied.

Slowly, Harry started to hear the same. The voice was nearing towards them. Harry aimed his wand at the area while pushing Teddy behind him. "Keep quiet," he whispered to Teddy as he ran through all the magical creatures he knew of that had a feminine voice. None were very promising, and most were deadlier than their masculine counterparts.

"I'm not lost, not lost, not lost at all," the voice said as it reached Harry's ears.

Harry kept his wand facing straight ahead, but loosened his shoulders. The voice was young, feminine, and scared. It was likely only a student who'd gotten lost in the woods, old enough to be curious but not old enough to realize she might need a Point-Me Charm to get back.

"Hello?" he called out.

The voice stopped talking for a moment, then replied, "Hello? Is anyone there?"

Harry heard a rustling of leaves until a figure appeared at the edges of his wand light. It came closer, slowly revealing a young girl. She was around Teddy's age, Harry noticed, had dark hair in a long braid that curled around her neck like a scarf, and wore black robes. And she was definitely too young to be at Hogwarts, even if he stretched his estimate of her age a bit.

He set his trunk down and tried to seem unthreatening, like he wasn't some strange man in the woods. "My name is Harry Lupin, and this is my son, Teddy. We're lost, too. Are you trying to find Hogwarts or Hogsmeade?"

The girl sniffed and rubbed her eye with the back of her hand. "I'm Minerva Mary McGonagall. And I was at Hogwarts! I wasn't supposed to run off, Mum said, but I was bored and… And my now mum is going to murder me," she said.

"It's okay," Harry consoled, trying not to gape. He could barely believe his Transfiguration professor had ever been this young. He'd never really thought about her childhood, but if he'd had, he might have assumed she'd been born with her stern, even stare and strict voice. Seeing her as a child, one with an even stronger Scottish accent, was somewhat disconcerting.

And really, Harry quite wished he could speak to the older Minerva, and tell her what a hypocrite she was, telling him, Ron, and Hermione off for their adventures when she'd started even younger than they had!

"Marder me, mister," Minerva staunchly reiterated at Harry's look of bemused disbelief.

"Dad can do the Point-Me Charm," Teddy added, poking his head out from behind Harry now that the threat of danger was gone. "So it's going to be fine. We'll get you back!"

Minerva surveyed them suspiciously. "Are you sure? I can hear the wolves. And I heard there's dragons here."

"I'll protect you!" Teddy cried, looking especially determined. He walked over to stand next to Minerva, who seemed captivated by his bright green hair. "I know a bit of karate!"

Harry just shook his head at the two and added, "And I have a mastery in Defense Against the Dark Arts. We'll be back at Hogwarts in no time."

Deciding to get back to business, he laid his wand across his hand. He said a modified Point-Me Charm incantation, one of Hermione's best creations after the war. Instead of pointing north like the regular Point-Me Charm, his wand wobbled, pointing a little off target. It would lead him straight to the nearest most magical location. And after centuries of teaching kids how to use a wand, Hogwarts was undoubtedly saturated with magic.

"Alright, stay close," he told the two kids. "If you see something, tell me, but do it quietly. And please don't run off!"

Teddy nodded, then frowned as he remembered something important. "Dad! We forgot about Crooks!"

"I knew there was something," Harry said, quickly undoing the latch on his trunk. He lifted the lid, moving out of the way when he noticed movement inside. A blur of brown and orange fur flew out of the trunk and settled on its feet, hissing at Harry, whose face melted into a guilty expression.

"Sorry, Crookshanks," he muttered. "I didn't forget about you! I just had a lot on my mind, especially with our awful landing."

The cat continued hissing. Harry got the feeling that if Crookshanks were a dog, he'd be growling very fiercely. Instead, his hissing and raised fur only made him look more like a plushy stuffed animal.

"Aren't you happy I let you out in the first place?" Harry tried.

Crookshanks just lifted his tail at Harry and strode over to Teddy, who was too happy to pick him up and pet him.

Having picked up the cat with all the grace of an eight year old, earning a paw at his face, Teddy walked over to Minerva. "Do you like cats?"

"I love them," Minerva replied.

"Do you want to pet Crookshanks? He's really nice. I bet he'll like you." He lifted the pudgy cat into Minerva's waiting hands and Crookshanks purred happily in her arms. As the cat nuzzled against Minerva, Teddy pet him and pointed out various spots where Crookshanks had gotten injured in the past decade. "And this time he tried to eat Buckbeak," Teddy said, pointing at an old scar.

"Now are you two ready to leave this dangerous forest?" Harry asked the two. Teddy nodded.

Still petting the cat, Minerva followed them, but not before adding, "If you're a bad man, you should know that my Mum taught me the wandless banishing charm. It can vanish parts of you and leave the rest of you screaming and bleeding." She glared up at him, and Harry was struck by how similar she suddenly looked to her older self.

And how dissimilar as well, because Harry just wanted to chuckle at her cuteness. Mini Minnie McGonagall, all Scottish and young and adorable. By the time Harry met her, she had been in her seventies and her accent greatly diminished, but now…

"That's brilliant!" Teddy replied, jumping up in excitement. "Can you teach me? Dad won't let me do any magic until I'm older."

Minerva nodded, and the two began to share stories of self-defense philosophies and their shared love of cats. Harry walked behind them, steering them toward Hogwarts and musing on how he definitely hadn't been as bloodthirsty as a kid.

.

A half hour of warily searching the darkness for acromantulas later, Harry belatedly realized that if Minerva was so young, then Hagrid probably hadn't even been born yet, let alone set loose his deranged creatures. It didn't mean that the forest didn't have other poisonous plants and animals, but he did stop searching for gigantic spider webs.

Soon enough, he was glad to see the thicket of trees begin thinning, birds becoming more plentiful, and the light of the moon softened by smoke from the groundskeeper's hut. Crookshanks awaited them at the edge of the forest, having gotten free from Teddy and Minerva a quarter of an hour ago and decided to run off without them. Standing near Crookshanks and staring into the forest were two figures, their faces still hidden by darkness, one of whom was obviously familiar to Minerva.

"Mum!" she cried, running over to the shorter figure in a pointed witch's hat. The woman leaned down, wrapping her arms around her daughter. Harry and Teddy weren't close enough to hear what Minerva's mother was saying, but Harry guessed it was some form of admonishment for straying.

Harry and Teddy followed her at a slower pace, coming to stand beside the man next to Minerva's mother. Harry had noticed something familiar about his profile from further away, but as he and Teddy neared the two strangers, it was obvious that the man was no other than a much, much younger Albus Dumbledore. His crooked nose and soft blue eyes were unmistakable, despite his lack of half-moon glasses and strangely colored robes. He had a shock of red hair atop his head—so much red after being used to the usual white was quite startling—and a fuzzy red beard that seemed to have a mind of its own to go along with it. He seemed to be only in his forties, or maybe even late thirties.

"Thank you for returning her safely," Albus told Harry. "We were about to head out to look for her."

He looked so different than the Dumbledore Harry knew that had he tried, Harry knew he'd never be able to describe the strangeness of seeing his old mentor's young face. Harry rubbed at his scar, an old habit nervous habit. Seeing Albus Dumbledore alive again was something he'd prepared for, but it was too soon. Harry was incredibly glad he had a talent for lying through his teeth, because otherwise he would have been able to do nothing but stare at his resurrected mentor.

"It was no problem," Harry replied. "We were lost ourselves."

"Thank you, all the same. My name is Albus Dumbledore. I am the Transfiguration professor here at Hogwarts," Albus said, holding his hand out for a handshake.

"I'm Harry Lupin and this is my son, Teddy. I promise, we're much cleaner under normal circumstances," he said wryly, looking down at the smudges of dirt on the back of his hand and his ruined clothes. He didn't quite feel self-conscious, since his own Albus had seen him at his worst, but he did feel very unkempt compared to Albus, whose robes were pressed and dignified. When he took Albus' hand in his, he realized they had never shook hands before, in this time or in the future. Albus' hand was warm, his skin close to the muscle and bone, unwrinkled. A younger man's hand.

Albus chuckled. "I'm sure. Had we not noticed Minerva missing, I would have gone on a short search anyway. I saw a bright light, and thought to come down to make sure the forest was alright. I hope neither of you are hurt."

"That was probably our malfunctioning portkey," Harry sheepishly said. "It didn't cause a forest fire or anything, thank Merlin, and left us both unharmed. The worst is my headache, but I'll be fine tomorrow morning."

"Dad, Aunt Hermione didn't say we'd have a bright light," Teddy said, tugging on Harry's robes.

Harry ruffled his hair in reassurance. He'd have to ask him later if he'd felt anything unusual during their travel through time. "It's okay, kiddo. We just had a little help from a shooting star." He wondered just how many people had noticed his and Teddy's arrival. He didn't need the ministry nosing around in what caused the light, or other unsavory folks. But short of—very unethical—mass obliviation, there was nothing Harry could do.

"I hope you're not too far from your destination. I'm Matilda McGonagall. Thank you for returning my daughter to me," Minerva's mother said, entering their conversation. She was a beautiful woman, Harry noticed as he turned toward her. Still very young, not even middle aged, tall and brown-haired with intelligent eyes. Looking at her, he could almost see how Minerva would've looked long before he met her.

"It was no problem. We were a little lost as well, and I'm just happy we were able to find Hogwarts without coming across something dangerous."

He could almost see the possibilities of what could have happened run through her mind, but Matilda didn't mention it further. Instead, she turned to Albus, and said, "Now Minerva's back, we really must go, Albus. I will floo you about my research later this week."

And with a couple of goodbyes between everyone, mainly Teddy and Minerva and Minerva and Crookshanks, who couldn't quite bring themselves to part, the McGonagalls turned to leave.

After Matilda took her daughter by the hand and the two witches apparated away, Albus turned to Harry and asked, "Are you planning to rest at Hogsmeade?"

"Yes, we are. Could you suggest an inn for us?"

"A number of the town's inns should still be open," Albus said after a moment of thought. "If you don't mind the company, I would be happy to see you to an inn. I have business in Hogsmeade tonight."

"Thank you," Harry replied, and allowed Albus to lead the way toward the small village. "Hogwarts really is beautiful," he commented, tracing the old castle with his eyes. "It's been a while since I've seen it." It had been over half a decade since he'd seen the castle. He hadn't had much more than a glimpse of it since the couple weeks he'd spent helping rebuild the castle after the final battle. He'd been too busy with his job and with Teddy to really be able to visit. And when he'd met with his old professors about the school's plans for integrating muggle-borns and purebloods, they had met at more neutral locations.

"It is a majestic building," Albus acceded.

"I thought it was the most beautiful building in the world when I first saw it," Harry said.

"Did you go to school here?"

"No, but Teddy here will start it in a couple of years."

"Dad tells me there are actual ghosts and everything!" Teddy said with a grin.

"From what I've heard from my friends, yes," Harry added.

Dumbledore said, "The school also offers tours of the castle on weekends," then leaned in and said conspiratorially to Teddy, "I hope you don't mind, but there are also poltergeists in the castle."

"Really?" Teddy asked, eyes wide. Harry hadn't told him about Peeves, since the poltergeist was an annoying bugger.

"Oh, yes. As well as a couple ghouls, a boggart or two…"

Eventually, they reached Hogsmeade (thankfully without running into any problems), where Albus directed them to The Cat's Cradle, a visitor's inn that hadn't been around in the future. Harry had thought Albus might take them to the Hog's Head, which had a section of rooms, but he could see the appeal of The Cat's Cradle. For one, it would smell much less of firewhiskey.

"Perfect place for you, eh, Crookshanks?" Harry asked as Crookshanks walked inside through the cat entrance, and then turned to Albus. "Thank you for helping us get here."

"It was my pleasure, Mr. Lupin, although I caution you to be more careful with your portkeys, lest you find yourself in more trouble than you can get out of."

They parted ways there, Albus going further into Hogsmeade as Harry, Teddy, and Crookshanks entered the inn. Harry got them a room with a view of the deserted night street, away from the side of the building that faced the Forbidden Forest, and soon both of them were asleep.

.

The next morning, Harry was jarred awake by a loud thump on his bed, followed by something heavy crashing onto his arm.

"Teddy, if that's you..." he began, but a content purr coming from on top of his arm shattered that notion. Harry slowly opened his eyes, wondering how a cat got inside his house, and noticed the cats-on-clouds wallpaper in his room. I'm definitely not at home, he realized, wincing inwardly at the design. He turned his head away from the walls and toward Crookshanks, who had found the perfect spot to sleep: half on top of his arm, half between Harry's arm and his body. "How did Ron and Hermione put up with you?"

Crookshanks just raised his lips, showing his pointy teeth, when Harry moved to push him out of the way. Harry suddenly remembered Ron eagerly nodding when Hermione suggested he take Crookshanks with him so that Teddy could have something from his favorite aunt and uncle on their journey. That traitor, he had known the cat was a feline dictator, and foisted the evil thing off on Harry!

A few minutes later, having untangled himself from Crookshanks and dug the cat's claws out of his pajama sleeve, Harry went to wake up Teddy, who slept in the second bed in the room. He nudged the child softly, then pushed a little more. Teddy twisted away from him, muttering, "Wanna sleep," so Harry pulled out the big guns and poured a stream of cold water from his wand into Teddy's hair, which automatically changed to blue.

"Dad," he whined, jumping out of bed. "Don't do that."

"I'll take you to Zonko's to make up for it," Harry promised. "Now, get dressed." He pointed to his trunk and a set of child-sized clothes flew out, floating around Teddy's head like a halo. Bad mood forgotten, Teddy laughed and jumped for the flying clothes.

"That's my future Seeker," Harry said, patting him on the head. A few minutes later, both were dressed and heading downstairs. Crookshanks followed behind them, his fur tickling Harry's ankles. The cat quickly left them when he saw a bowl of cat food near the breakfast buffet table.

On the way there, Harry stopped to say, "Good morning," to the owner of the inn, a Mrs. Alana Diggory.

"Good morning, Misters Lupin—" Teddy proudly puffed out his stomach at being called Mister, and Mrs. Diggory winked at Harry "—I trust you slept well?"

"Like the dead," Harry said, and was directed to the food table and told to sit on the balcony, as it was a beautiful morning outside. "Do you happen to have a Daily Prophet?" he asked while piling food on two plates.

While Teddy added a couple heaps of sugar and jam to his oatmeal, Harry looked over the Daily Prophet. The date was Saturday, September 7th, 1923, over eighty years before Harry's yesterday, which had been September 7th, 2006. Harry hadn't been sure just how far back in time they would go, and he was happy to see that they arrived in the period between the World Wars but before 1929, the year Merope Riddle became pregnant with Tom Riddle Jr.

Breakfast was scrumptious, which Harry made sure to assure Mrs. Diggory of (not only was it polite, but he couldn't help the guilt that seeped into his mind whenever he thought of the Diggory family), and Harry and Teddy left for Zonko's with time to spare for its first day of servicing young children and teenagers with pranks of all sorts. Albus had told them yesterday about the opening, and Teddy had an immovable determination to visit it since then. They ambled over from the residential district of Hogsmeade to the shops, where Teddy joined a line of Hogwarts students to enter the first joke shop in the history of the village.

Evidently it was a Hogsmeade weekend, and with Harry's luck he was noticed by the very person he hoped to avoid: Transfiguration professor Albus Dumbledore, who wore robes the color of the giant squid set on fire, looking outrageously funny to anyone else, but no less daunting to Harry. In this life, he could not share with Albus his secrets. For one, the man would not believe him, or be weary of him if he did. For another, he was not the Albus Dumbledore Harry knew and loved. Harry had spent years with the older Dumbledore, and his portrait as well, and this man was not the same person Harry knew. As much as it pained him, he couldn't so easily trust him.

"Mr. Lupin," Albus' familiar voice called. "I'm glad to see you're unharmed. I was worried you or your son might have had unknown injuries after last night."

Inwardly, Harry groaned. How was he supposed to keep his distance when Albus was just so friendly? He steeled himself from the power of candy and goodness. "No, no, we're doing fine." Harry's eyes swept from Albus to the boy whose robe Albus held in a pinch. He had the unhappy expression of a caught troublemaker, and Harry couldn't help asking, "Get caught without a signed permission slip?"

The boy blinked and scowled sourly at Harry as well at Albus. "Yes."

"You seem to be familiar with the practice," Albus said, his blue eyes twinkling.

Harry caught a teasing tone in his voice and grinned. It was as though his decision to keep away from Albus had never been made. "I was a bit of a troublemaker at school myself," he replied. His own Dumbledore had known that quite well. The past catching up to him, he added, "But I won't keep you, Professor Dumbledore." It had been on the tip of his tongue to say Headmaster, but he caught the word before it could slip out. Albus wasn't Headmaster, not yet.

After exchanging goodbyes, Harry turned his attention back to Teddy.

"Is this one like Uncle George's?" Teddy asked. "It doesn't look like it."

"Ah, no," Harry said. "It's a bit similar, though. Your uncle George just has a much better marketing technique."

The location of the shop was the same, as George, suave businessman that he was, had put Zonko's out of business after two years of operating Weasley's Wizard Weezeys in Diagon Alley. When Zonko's finally closed, George bought its shop and the contracts to some of its products. And ever since then, he'd been playfully referred to as the family's honorary Slytherin. (It was troubling, to think of the family he'd never see again. He'd see parts of them in their much younger selves, but they'd never again be the Weasleys Harry knew and loved. But there were more important things than the comfort of home—and the Weasleys had been home to him—and Harry was well-versed in sacrifice.)

They spent a half hour looking at the shop's wares (Candy Mountains had nothing on Skiving Snackboxes), until Teddy was noticeably tired, and went back to the Cat's Cradle for a break. Their journey had been magically exhausting, and he wasn't surprised his eight year old godson needed rest. He tucked Teddy in for a nap and ordered Crookshanks to watch him. The cat settled in on Harry's bed and kept his eyes on Teddy.

Sometimes, Harry was worried about how smart the cat was. First it had tried to help Sirius kidnap Wormtail, then helped Sirius escape, and now it watched Teddy on Harry's request. Harry himself went downstairs to talk to Mrs. Diggory about housing prospects.

Back in the future, Harry, Hermione, and Ron had made plans upon plans upon plans for his journey into the past. The most important ones were for preventing the birth of Voldemort (and therefore the aftermath of the Second Wizarding War) and taking care of Teddy (and Crookshanks, who could take care of himself but had other people do it for him), but they had also made for their living arrangements and various little things to a smooth transition into living in the past.

"Wouldn't your wife want to help choose the house?" Mrs. Diggory asked as she pointed out different magical communities in Britain.

"Teddy's mother passed away a few years ago," Harry replied. He was uncomfortable misleading the nice old lady, but it was best to head off any personal questions, and such a close death would put off any questions such as whether he was married.

Mrs. Diggory almost dropped her wand. "I'm terribly sorry. I shouldn't have asked." After an awkward pause, she went on to tell him more about wizarding housing. "Well, as you know, we have a nice little community here in Hogsmeade, but it is a bit close to the school. Not exactly quiet, not with the students on weekends and all the beasts in the forest to the west and the mountains to the north." She pointed to another place on the map, farther south, and said, "Now here is Godric's Hollow. A tad expensive, but nice all the same. Many great wizards live there, and children do so need good role models."

Harry shook his head. "Price isn't an issue, but I'm not sure I want to live there." Not so close to where his parents had died—would die—would never die, if he had a chance to make things better. He also wasn't keen on watching his father grow up. He wanted to see his parents one day, and would, just to make sure his meddling didn't affect them badly, but he didn't think living so close to his father's side of the family would do anyone good.

Mrs. Diggory looked curious, but she obviously didn't want to ask another sad question, so she continued, "There's also Helga's Valley, Salazar's Cavern—actually, you really don't want to live there, I shouldn't have even mentioned it—and, of course, Rowena's Brook. A lovely place. My daughter and her husband live there, and they say only good things. You should also consider the residential districts of Diagon Alley, and perhaps the half-wizard, half-Muggle communities on the shore and in London."

With a better understanding of available places, Harry searched Mrs. Diggory's listings for a realtor, whom he fire-called and set up an appointment with the next business day.

.

The next day, Harry woke earlier and almost like himself again. Time travel had taken more out of him than he'd thought it would. While Teddy slept, Harry took care of some long overdue accounting and double-checking of the magical objects he'd brought along with them. Downstairs, he ordered a cup of coffee and a newspaper.

As he was putting away his paper, Teddy walked downstairs with Crookshanks at his heels. Every other step, Teddy would reach down and run his fingers through Crookshanks' fur, which the cat allowed. The tips of his fingers turned red and brown like the cat's fur, unconsciously demonstrating his Metamorphmagus abilities.

"Teddy," Harry said, calling his attention to him. "Focus."

Teddy pulled down a lock of his hair first, checking the color, then turned his hands over to check his fingers. His hair, hands, and feet were the most common places that changed color without his knowledge, and he stared down at his hands until they turned pale again.

"Sorry," he said, easily. It was a common enough thing, for Teddy to lose control and Harry to correct it. Harry would've given anything for someone to do the same with him when he was younger and his magic was as out of control as his emotions.

Now, Harry just gave Teddy a hug, smiling as he tried to wiggle out, saying, "I'm eight, Dad, jeez."

Mrs. Diggory looked at them curiously, probably thinking they were talking about accidental magic. Harry didn't dissuade her from the idea, and instead asked Teddy if he wanted to go for a morning walk around Hogsmeade.

Teddy scrunched his nose and pouted. "But that's boring! Can we have ice cream?"

"And some food, too," Harry said sternly. "We'll be back in a few hours, Mrs. Diggory." He looked at Crookshanks. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

The cat meowed and looked at him in a way that Harry just knew was cat code for, "Really? I'll make sure to seek revenge on my enemies and try to get myself killed."

"Touché," he muttered, hoping Mrs. Diggory didn't decide he was mad.

He and Teddy took a long walk around the town, with Harry unconsciously surveying the buildings, trying to remember which ones had lasted into the future and which hadn't. The entirety of Hogsmeade looked different and strange, enough so that he wondered if the entire town had gotten rebuilt at some point. For lunch, they apparated to the Leaky Cauldron, where he ordered them a late lunch and sat in a booth. The same booth, in fact, as the one in which he, Hermione, and Ron, would sit at years in the future while Teddy was over at Mrs. Weasley's. They would get together at least once a month to catch up on their lives, since none of them worked in one place anymore.

It made him nostalgic for the past, his past, the future, and Harry had to remind himself that he willingly left that life. It had been his choice; it was the only choice he could have made. He just had to make the best of it. And looking around at the original Leaky Cauldron, not one half destroyed after the second war, with Teddy's laughter in the background, made it worth it to continue, even if it didn't make everything instantly better.

Once Teddy finished eating, they walked to Florean's Ice Cream Parlor, and Teddy ordered a Goblin Sunday and a mint chocolate chip waffle cone for Harry from memory. They ate on the stools by the counter, legs swinging, until Harry decided to have a talk with Teddy.

"Teddy, I need to ask you something," Harry said seriously. Teddy glanced up from his plate. "Would you mind having a sister?"

Teddy's hair went orange in surprise, but quickly settled back to brown. "A girl? Would she live with us?" he asked.

Harry took his hands in his. "Yes. For... some time, anyway. I want to take care of her. I feel like it's my duty, even though it doesn't make much sense."

"Is she like me?" Teddy asked.

He could have been talking about his ability, but Harry said, "No, older. Fifteen, maybe sixteen years old." He clarified, "An older kid."

"She wouldn't fit in our room. I think we need a house for that."

Harry was relieved that was Teddy's only problem. "I'm buying one soon."

Teddy nodded slowly, as if thinking through the idea. "Is she nice?"

Harry thought for a moment. Love potions, coercion, forced marriage, at least a few mental health issues... "Yes," he decided. Until any of the crimes she committed happened in this timeline, he would have hope that Merope Gaunt was a nice person inside, and that she had only been driven to crime because it was the only way out of her circumstances. Believing the best of people should never be a bad thing—up to a point, as Harry remembered Peter Pettigrew.

They spent the day browsing Diagon Alley, delighting in the strange new world they now lived in and taking in its customs. When it began to darken, they apparated back to the Cat's Cradle. Teddy looked tired enough to fall asleep immediately, which he did. Harry transfigured his clothes into pajamas while he slept, thinking of the many things he had to do. Maybe it wasn't the best decision, to come back alone, without his best friends, but he would never truly be alone as long as he had Teddy, and everyone he knew had lives they had to attend to. Harry didn't see himself as expendable, but he knew he was the one with the weakest link to the Wizarding world. He didn't have a job or a family other than Teddy, and he barely lived inside the Wizarding world. He was the best person to go back in time. The most available. And if Ron and Hermione were to be believed, the most deserving of a chance to make things right. Harry hoped their trust in him wasn't misplaced.

And he really hoped he didn't muck things up, because he had a billion to one chance of being able to change history again.

.

The next day, Harry paid a little extra for Mrs. Diggory's daycare services and left Teddy in her capable hands. Teddy joined three children in cat-themed board games and lighthearted prank objects while Harry went to visit Cauldwell, his new realtor, the only one he could find who worked on a day's notice.

The meeting with his realtor ran overtime into late evening. Harry quickly realized that although he got a cursory understanding of magical communities from Mrs. Diggory, he needed to know exactly what he wanted in order for Cauldwell to buy him the perfect home.

His old home in Godric's Hollow currently belonged to Andromeda's father, his parents' home belonged to a nice young pureblood couple who wasn't likely to relocate anytime soon, and the Black family mansion definitely wouldn't be his in this life, so Harry was at a loss to where he wanted to live.

"Somewhere with a good-sized yard," Harry said. "And a Quidditch pitch nearby."

To Cauldwell's displeasure, Harry couldn't settle on how many bedrooms he wanted. He also refused to live in Godric's Hollow or Ottery St. Catchpole, where James Potter, Molly Weasley, and Arthur Weasley had respectively grown up. If he settled in Godric's Hollow, there was the all too certain probability of running into his grandparents, as most Potters lived in the big town. He didn't want to see his parents and his surrogate parents as toddlers, but he couldn't give the realtor a good reason, one that would help Cauldwell disqualify other magical communities.

By the time they finished, Cauldwell looked ready to pull his hair out in frustration, and Harry just wanted to leave everything and go home. Except, he couldn't go home as he didn't have a home yet, and therefore he set up another appointment, this time deciding to outline his preferences beforehand in written form.

He apparated from Diagon Alley to right outside of the Cat's Cradle, tired but happy to see its cheery wallpaper. He might get some for Teddy's room when they finally had a house—it was somehow soothing.

He was about go to Mrs. Diggory's first floor office when he heard a scream from upstairs, one loud enough to overpower the standard hotel silencing charms. As a former Auror, Harry didn't have to think before grabbing his wand and rushing out the door. He kicked in the door to the left of his room and yelled, "Stupefy!" with his wand pointed at a hooded person holding a knife at the room's second occupant, a middle-aged, pudgy gentleman. The man—and Harry assumed he was a man, judging by his height—with the knife moved away just in time and Harry's spell hit the wall, leaving a scorch mark in the wallpaper that would likely resist to being washed away by magic.

But Harry had bigger things to worry about than Mrs. Diggory's ire when the masked man's transformed into a wand. Their wands were pointed at one another, both ready to fire a spell but unsure if theirs would hit, when Harry heard voices coming closer.

"I thought I heard something..."

"A scream, here at the Cat's Cradle!"

"We should call the Aurors. We should, we should."

Quicker than Harry could imagine, the masked man jumped out the open window. Harry ran to the windowsill, but the man had vanished, leaving Harry to deal with the crowd of people. He murmured, "Aurors ad ostium tabernaculi," under his breath, then realized he was a couple decades too early for the Auror-calling spell.

"Mr. Lupin! What is the meaning of this racket?" Mrs. Diggory exclaimed. Teddy pushed into the room from behind a couple other residents and came to stand next to Harry, asking if Harry was okay.

"He—he saved me!" said the voice to Harry's left. Harry turned to the man he had saved. He was very tall and thickset, but had somehow squeezed himself into the farthest corner of the bed, his hands only now unwrapping from around his legs.

And, as evidenced by his story, he had forgotten he was a wizard.

"I heard something in the window, but I thought it was a bird, and owl, maybe. I went to open it and there's this man! He blasted open the window and I yelled stop, but his wand became a knife and I thought I was going to die! Then this man comes in—" he looked to Harry, as if to say he should continue the story, but Harry shook his head, uncomfortable with the attention, "—and he stopped him from killing me!"

"But who was he? Why was he after you?" asked one of the curious guests.

"I—I don't know. He must have been a maniac, going around killing random wizards. It was a very horrible experience. I think I want to rest now."

Harry lingered in the room, trying to decide if he wanted to ask, but decided it wasn't any of his business if the man was lying. Mrs. Diggory turned to go downstairs, shaking her head and muttering, "Five years I run this place without having to call the Aurors. Well, there goes the Cradle's reputation. I can't believe it…"

Harry left the man on the bed with a parting piece of advice, saying, "You should either hire someone to protect you, or go through your Defense Against the Dark Arts textbooks. Just in case this happens again."

The man nodded, still shaken, and Harry left without another word, pulling Teddy along with him.

.

The next morning Harry decided to work harder at finding a house for him and Teddy. It was better to leave the Cat's Cradle as soon as possible, considering his encounter with Little's would-be killer. It was one thing to stay in the homelike inn while it was safe, but another to stay after he had stopped an assassin from killing a man who still hadn't moved out of the inn. Harry didn't know why exactly the man had someone out to kill him, but the killer had seemed determined, and Harry had Teddy to look out for. He couldn't take this kind of risk.

The man—Wolfgang Little, Harry was told his name was—had impressed on Mrs. Diggory his apologies at disturbing the peace in her inn, and convinced her to let him stay for another week as he simply could not leave.

He explained the story to Harry and several others at breakfast that day after coming downstairs with a sorrowful expression on his face.

"I cannot believe it," Little moaned, taking a seat at the table closest to Harry and Teddy.

Teddy looked up from his food. "You don't look like Aunt Hermione."

"What?"

"That's what Aunt Hermione says all the time to Aunt Luna. You're not Aunt Hermione."

"No, but I am homeless," Little replied with a heavy sight. "I went to my house this morning to check on my toad—I would've brought him with me, but you know how loud it is here in Hogsmeade, and poor Burt doesn't like noise—and then I found it burned down! Completely and totally! I couldn't even go through the floo. I had to apparate there. Almost had a heart attack at the sight, yes I did. Oh, my Burtie!"

"Didn't you have fireproofing charms?" a witch asked.

Or any protective wards at all, Harry wondered inwardly. Usually older, more affluent houses had enough protective wards that a strange wizard couldn't even go near the house if he or she had ill intent, and Little's elegant waistcoat suggested that he had no lack of gold. Grimmauld Place, though not an average pureblood house, had the ministry standard proofing charms, and those would prevent anything up to fiendfyre.

As Little explained how the charms would've interfered with his research, and were just much too heavy for a man with a magical constitution such as he, many of the roomers shared a look that clearly said, "What kind of forty year old person has a pet toad?"

Little shook his head wildly, throwing his brown long hair all over the place. "I never thought I'd have fire. My potions room is completely contained! I could've never caused one myself. It's the worst misfortune. All my research material, lost forever!"

While everyone else was more interested in Little's new circumstances, Teddy was transfigured by Little's hair. He stared curiously at Little for a moment, then slowly his brown hair grew out until it was past his shoulders, imitating Little's curious style.

Harry ruffled the kid's newly long hair with a smile. "Good job controlling it," he praised.

Teddy made a face. "It tickles." Within seconds, his hair was back to normal, and he went back to enjoying Mrs. Diggory's cooking.

"You didn't keep any copies of your work?" someone asked Little.

"A dear friend of mine has a few works that I left with her to edit, some essays and the like. None of the serious stuff. Oh, my life is ruined!"

Harry finished his meal, idly thinking of what he could do to prevent a house fire in his new home. He didn't have many personal belongings that he'd miss if his house (the one he would ideally buy soon) burned down, but it would be a costly problem. He would have to discuss it with the warding crew, he supposed, and make it absolutely certain that fireproofing charms were needed.

He was just about to ask Teddy if he was ready to leave when the door of the Cat's Cradle opened and a man wearing the official burgundy Auror robes stepped inside. The man's pointed hat's flaps covered most of his face—Harry really did hate this outdated fashion—and he could only see his thin lips move slightly as he spoke quietly to Mrs. Diggory at the front desk.

"Oh no," moaned Little, upset enough to make Harry wonder if there was more to the problem than he had thought.

"An Auror!" Teddy cried, oblivious to Little's personal feelings. "Can I ask to see his badge, Dad? And his wand? And is it true that all Aurors wear dragon leather?"

"Unfortunately not," the Auror said, turning to the rest of the room. "Too expensive, for one."

Harry recognized his voice, and when the Auror removed his hat, he recognized his face. Seventy years younger and missing his battle scars, Alastor "Not Yet Mad-Eye" Moody was almost handsome. His blond hair was as wild as it had been in Harry's future, but it looked good on his twenty-something year old self, though it clashed with the color of his robes.

"Wolfgang Little?" he asked into the room.

Shaking slightly, Little raised his hand.

Their tables were next to one another, and Harry leaned in to ask, "Do you need an attorney?"

Little shook his head. "No, no. I've done nothing wrong. It's… just sensitive, politically. That's all."

Before Harry could ask which side Little was sensitive to—the opinionated, radical pureblood wing or the small, growing muggleborn branch—the Auror sat down across from Little.

"My name is Alastor Moody. I'm going to ask you a few questions about last night," he said, showing Little his badge and taking out a thick notepad and quill. Then, with a glance at Harry, he handed the badge to Teddy, who took it reverently. Harry smiled down at the boy, only glancing at the badge to make sure that it was in order. He'd quit the Aurors when Teddy was very young, so Teddy had never even seen him in their robes. He'd never talked about it with him; it was from the time before the catastrophe that was the Black-Lupin investigation, when Harry's opinion of the ministry soured completely.

Little visibly gulped as Moody turned his stern eyes toward him, but slowly relaxed as Moody began asking questions. He wasn't interested in Little's work or political affiliations, just about the man who'd attacked him. When Little got to the part of the night when Harry appeared and pointed his way, Moody turned to him, and Harry began the story.

"And neither of you saw his face," Moody eventually said.

"He was masked," Little assured.

Moody nodded and shook Little's hand. "I'll be in touch with you if we receive any more information, about the man or your house. However, the primary investigation has brought no leads."

To both of them, he added, "If you remember anything else of significance, the Auror department would be interested in hearing it." With a small bow, Moody turned toward the exit, soundless, lacking the loud clank of a wooden leg.

"This political. And dangerous," Harry told Little. "I'd be careful, if I were you." Because although Harry wasn't the most knowledgeable about twentieth century magical world figures, he didn't remember the name Wolfgang Little. Perhaps the man had only faded to obscurity in a natural way, his research failing or making an impact on society. Or perhaps he'd been meant to die that night—perhaps Harry had changed time much earlier than he'd wished. There was no changing it now, though, and no room for regret. Harry would have to deal with what came.

"I'd hoped you'd give me some good news," Little said, and returned morosely to his now cold breakfast. A few moments later, he looked up questioningly to ask how exactly Harry knew what he did, but by then both Harry and Teddy were gone.

.

Perhaps it was Teddy's boundless enthusiasm that eased things along, but this meeting went much better than the last.

Harry still refused to settle in the most popular wizarding communities, Godric's Hollow and Ottery St. Catchpole, and in the meantime he'd added Hogsmeade to the list.

"And what is wrong with Hogsmeade?" the realtor asked, throwing his hands in the air, leading to Harry's second explanation of the attempted murder of Wolfgang Little. And Hogsmeade, even before the night before, wasn't the best place to raise a child. Even if Harry's years at Hogwarts were extraordinary in their level of danger, Harry wanted to keep Teddy away from Hogwarts until he was old enough to deal with wandering trolls and giant squids.

"Oh my," the realtor murmured. "The house sales there will drop abysmally." He wrinkled his nose. "But Wolfgang Little, oh my. Still, it isn't as though he couldn't have seen it coming."

"Why is that?" Harry wondered. The man hadn't seemed particularly unpleasant, or so shabby as to imply great debts.

"You're from out of town, so I suppose you wouldn't know. But… his research is into werewolves." Cauldwell seemed to be disgusted by merely saying the word.

Teddy looked up from a big book of homes. "Really? Awesome!"

"Yes, quite," Cauldwell said. "He works with—them—studies their physiology, and is even trying to come up with a cure." With the way he said the word, Harry had a feeling Cauldwell had a much better idea about what to do with werewolves, something much faster than curing them. "He even has the—" Cauldwell was taken aback by Harry's expression, and continued in a much weaker tone, "—that is to say, he publishes some of his findings in the Prophet. In the back pages, of course, but still right there." Between Harry's stern gaze and Teddy's excited one, Cauldwell realized he had no allies in the room, and took an old issue of the Prophet from his desk. He opened it to the back pages—magically extended and practically limitless in advertisements and less popular articles; Harry never read them—and flipped to page eighty-five. He handed the paper to Harry, who looked over it, not finding anything offensive. It was just a study of werewolves' fur patterns.

Harry handed it over to Teddy, who looked overjoyed despite the boring topic. There was never much age-appropriate reading material about werewolves, not even in the future. To think that there had been more in the more prejudiced past.

Despite the tension in the room, they continued to discuss possible houses. They finally settled on a neighborhood: Rowena's Brook. It was quiet enough that Harry would feel comfortable there, but with enough children for Teddy to play with. Cauldwell took them house hunting that very day, apparating them to the quiet streets of the neighborhood and pointing out available houses. After hours of searching, they settled on a home that Harry and Teddy both adored. It was located on a quiet street on Rowena's Brook, a few houses away from the actual brook itself. The house was two stories, with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, an attic, a kitchen, a living, and a dining room. Teddy loved it immediately, and Harry decided that with a bit of work, it would be perfect.

The house had been empty for close to three years, and although it had been kept under lock, key, and stasis spells, it still had some piping and dust problems. It also had a case of doxies in the living room curtains, as Harry pointed out, having seen too many cases of the problem in Grimmauld Place, and a particularly vibrant shade of pink wallpaper in the master bedroom that the realtor assured wasn't permanently stuck. But overall, he had to agree that the house was in good condition after its old owners left it a few years ago. The owners hadn't listed a reason for leaving, but they left in a hurry for retirement in New Zealand and had all their belongings shipped afterwards. Harry thought them a bit odd, but the oddities of the former owners didn't affect them very much.

"What are the neighbors like?" he asked the realtor. "And are there children that live nearby? I wouldn't want Teddy to grow up isolated."

"Oh, yes, there should be." He looked around. "Yes, the Harpers are right over there—" he pointed across the street "—and they have two children, one in Hogwarts, the other almost, along with a Black family, who have a son around your own son's age. I'm sure they'll get along."

They might if Harry taught Teddy to subscribe to pureblood supremacy notions, Harry thought, but unlikely otherwise. Cauldwell listed a few other names he didn't recognize, so Harry was assured Teddy would have his choice of playmates.

.

After being assured by Cauldwell that they could move in as soon as they paid a deposit, Harry took a drooping Teddy back to the Cat's Cradle. Little was nowhere to be seen, making Harry wonder if the man was alright.

"C'mon, bedtime, kiddo." It was only eight, but he and Teddy had walked around a lot that day, and Teddy looked dead on his feet. He'd rather deal with Teddy waking up at six in the morning than putting a crabby kid to bed in a few hours.

"Are we moving tomorrow, Dad?" Teddy asked as Harry tucked him in. Harry sat down on the side of Teddy's bed, running a hand along the tucked in sheets.

"No, it'll take a little while. We'll move soon." There was still Harry's bank account to be created and sorted and verified, and Harry knew for a fact there was no record of what was in his extendable money pouch. No accounting had been done since his parents had died, maybe not even since his grandparents had passed. All Harry had done was levitate the coins into the bag and leave, grumpy goblins keeping an eye on him every second of the trip. Neither he nor Ron nor Hermione had ever been allowed into the bank again. Harry hoped he hadn't somehow been magically marked as a bank thief, because he needed Gringotts' legitimacy now that he had none.

"But I like it here," Teddy whined. "There's lots of cats." That was true; Mrs. Diggory owned six cats in addition to the neighbors' cats, who liked to walk around the grounds.

"Maybe Crookshanks will find a girlfriend near our house," Harry suggested.

Crookshanks meowed.

"See? He's agreeing."

Teddy looked at Crookshanks. "Really?"

Crookshanks meowed again, and Teddy took it for a yes, although to Harry it sounded more like a defiant, meow-ish, "No."

Harry sat on the edge of Teddy's bed until Teddy fell asleep, thinking about how Teddy's other guardian would've felt about all this. Andromeda had died before Harry had a chance to really get to know her, and before she had gotten the chance to see him grow up. He wished she had lived to see him now: grown up, taking care of Teddy, buying a house like any other adult.

Andromeda had still been alive the first time Harry had gone shopping for a house, back when he and Ginny had thought they would get married. When they looked around, he'd been surprised how similar the modern houses were to muggle homes, though he'd felt something was missing. Later, he realized it was the lack of a garage that jarred him. Wizards had no need for cars, and therefore no need for garages. Harry was too used to living in muggle suburbs. Andromeda had laughed at him when he pointed out the strangeness of it. It was one of the few memories he had of her laughter. After the war, too many people were somber.

Hopefully, in time he could prevent the same tragedies from occurring. At the present, there were many small things he had to do to get settled into the time.

For the next few hours, Harry floo-called various home inspection, cleaning, warding, and insurance companies. He gathered that they would be able to settle into their new home in about a week, or less if he worked out home insurance with the goblins. It seemed that the visit to the bank couldn't wait.

After some thought, Harry added a few spells to the room. One to wake him up if his door or window were opened, and another few in case of fire or extreme ill intent. Spelling the rooms wasn't encouraged in hotels, but he was sure Mrs. Diggory would understand his safety measures after the attack.

.

Like the last night, Harry slept uneasily, but nothing untoward happened in Mr. Little's or his own room. He considered leaving Teddy in Mrs. Diggory's likely very capable hands, but decided to err on the side of caution. It wasn't that he wanted to leave Teddy there, but Gringotts was cold and damp on a good day, and practically hypothermic on a bad one. For a child like Teddy, it meant he could develop a cold in minutes, even with his werewolf constitution. So instead of asking for Mrs. Diggory's childcare services, Harry only asked for breakfast for two. Mrs. Diggory gave them a knowing, apologetic smile and said something about lowering the rates for the terrible occurrence. He also thanked Mrs. Diggory for thanked Mrs. Diggory for recommending Rowena's Brook, and mentioned and wished Mr. Little better luck. The depressed man thanked him with little enthusiasm.

"Did you like the neighborhood, dear?" she asked after handing Teddy an extra-large cookie with a wink, and saying, "You can't start the day without one."

"We've even found the perfect house. We're just going to set things up with Gringotts and then move in."

"And Dad says Crookshanks will meet a girlfriend-cat there!" Teddy said in between chewing on the cookie.

Harry sighed. He'd known he'd regret that comment.

"I'm sure my niece will be delighted to have another child living on the block," Mrs. Diggory said delightedly. With a stage whisper, she told Teddy, "And she even has a cat! Although it's a boy cat, so he and Crookshanks will be best friends instead."

They left the Cat's Cradle through the fireplace, and soon found themselves in the long row of fireplaces in Gringott's entrance hall.

Harry checked both himself and Teddy for soot, then cast a few charms on their hair to make themselves look slightly more presentable. He'd never understood the goblins' penchant for propriety, but seeing as he was hoping to set up a working relationship with them, it wouldn't hurt to brush up on his manners.

The line wasn't terribly long—they had managed to beat the rush by coming in early, and the only people in line did their business easily and quickly.

When it was his turn in line, Harry took Teddy by the hand and told the goblin, "Good morning. I'd like to set up an account."

The goblin pointed one long-nailed finger at an out-of-the-way door marked, Gornuk—New Accounts Manager. "That way. Gornuk will see you."

Harry nodded and steered Teddy towards the door.

Teddy worried his lip. "Uncle Dean—"

"I know," Harry answered. Teddy's Uncle Dean had talked about the odd goblin who'd escaped with him and Teddy's grandfather, and died in a struggle against the snatchers. Harry hadn't known him personally, but it seemed he would soon enough.

After being called in, Harry and Teddy sat down in front of Gornuk's large wooden desk. It should have made the goblin seem small in comparison, but instead the two fit in an odd sort of way.

"I assume you would like to establish a new account, Mr. Lupin," Gornuk began after the introductions, handing Harry a packet of papers. "Read the first paragraph on the fourth page aloud and sign on the dotted line. This is a binding agreement through blood and magic and will be automatically broken if your account at Gringotts must be closed. I assume your deposit is in your trunk?"

Harry nodded as he signed on the line. He barely felt the blood quill draw blood, but grimaced all the same.

Gornuk pressed a nearby bell with his long finger, and a shorter, younger-looking goblin left with Harry's trunk. "Griphook will create your vault and deposit your money. Would you like to create a dependent account at this time?"

Harry looked toward Teddy, then shook his head. "No thank you. I'll do it when he's a little older." Maybe before Teddy started school. To Teddy, he added, "And we'll also see the vault later, okay?"

"Kay," Teddy nodded.

By the time Griphook came back with two sheets of paper, Harry had almost filled out the mass of paperwork that Gornuk had given him. Interest rates, inheritance—everything to Teddy, of course—minimum balances, and the rest of it, were driving him crazy. Gornuk gave Harry one of the sheets of paper—a record of his first deposit in his vault—and they both signed.

"Good day, Mr. Lupin," the goblin said, without the slightest hint that Harry had deposited a ridiculously large sum of money—the Potter and Black accounts from his day added together—and gained the bank a rich customer. If anything, Harry loved that goblins were completely blasé about how much money their customers had, as long as they paid their dues on time.

"Good day, Mr. Gornuk."

.

It was good to see the sun after spending over an hour inside Gringotts, Harry thought with a smile. Teddy was similarly excited, and together they went to visit Mr. Cauldwell and finalized the buying of their new home. Afterwards, they bought their first furniture for the house—three beds and various kitchen appliances.

"We'll have to get the rest later," Harry told Teddy. "We can't move in yet, after all. We still have to hear back from the warding and bug people."

"But after that?"

"Then you can choose whatever you want," Harry promised. "Within reason," he tacked on, because even after six years of parenting he was still worried about his son becoming spoiled like Dudley. There was some sort of happy medium between the way Harry and Dudley had been raised by the Dursleys, but for the life of him, Harry couldn't find it when it came to Teddy. He wanted to give his son the world.

They spent the rest of the day in Diagon Alley, visiting shops and buying odds and ends for their new home. Teddy was excited throughout the day, but Harry couldn't help feeling nostalgic and somewhat somber. Teddy was young—he'd make friends with the Diggory boy across the street, and maybe even the Black children—but Harry had left his lifelong friends in the future. He wasn't sure that when the time came to invite people to their new home, he would be able to make friendships as strong as those he'd left behind.

While they were shopping, an owl landed on Harry's shoulder and dropped a letter into his hand. Cauldwell's handwriting wrote that Harry's money had successfully transferred from Gringotts and the sale had gone through. A silver key for the front door fell out of the envelope and Harry slipped it into a secure pocket. Harry Lupin was now the owner of 12 Phoenix Lane, Rowena's Brook.

Despite his and Teddy's eagerness to move in, they waited until the warding crew gave it the stamp of approval, fire safety wards tucked in between as many wards as possible for a house. By the time Harry took Teddy's hand to apparate them home, his other hand grasped a bulging trunk full of everything they'd bought over the course of their wait, shrunk to the smallest size possible.

They appeared on the sidewalk across from the house, a strike of fancy having struck Harry. It was evening now, and the fading sun's rays hit the red brick house in an array of red hues. As it was a wizarding house in a completely wizarding neighborhood, it had no driveway or garage for a car. Instead, there was one narrow path to the doorway, which Harry now began to walk down.

Frustrated with Harry's sedate pace, Teddy ran across the yard with Crookshanks following behind him, the cat's fluffy tail swaying in the autumn wind.

"Come on, Dad!" Teddy called.

"Coming!"

Harry gave the house one last glance—his first house, something he'd never thought he'd have to buy, with all the properties he'd had access to in the future—and walked more quickly to his home. He slid the key into the keyhole and turned, letting his charges run through the doorway ahead of him.

"Can I choose my room?"

"You haven't already chosen?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. That didn't sound like his son.

Teddy just grinned and grabbed a box of his things. He took the stairs two at a time and Harry heard him slam open a door. Harry followed him, a pack of letters in his hand. Teddy had chosen one of the two rooms facing the backyard, though he scrunched his nose at the light purple wallpaper covering the walls. After pinky promising to change it later, Harry enlarged Teddy's bed from his box of belongings, fit new sheets on it, threw and blankets and pillows onto it. He tucked Teddy in, and repeated his actions in the master bedroom. The whole house felt spooky, with its only furniture a trunk and two beds, and lacking anything else, but Harry knew it would be a real home soon enough.

When Teddy crawled in with him later with his teddy bear in one hand and the other in Crookshanks' fur, Harry just tugged him closer and slept.

.

The next morning, Harry began working like a man possessed, cleaning the house until it was nearly as spotless as the one on Privet Drive. This time, it was different, and he didn't begrudge the effort. It was his, his and Teddy's.

Harry's cleaning and organizing was interrupted only by a revolving stream of visitors. Over the first week of occupation, Lupin household was flooded with neighbors and their various housewarming gifts. The first to come were the curious neighbors across the street, the Diggorys, who gave them a brilliant cherry pie and told Harry they had heard so much about him from Mrs. Diggory at the Cat's Cradle.

"My mother is a terrible gossip," Ella Diggory told him, taking a sip of tea. "But I do have to ask—where did you live before?"

Later, Charles Dart asked, "And you're sure you don't need insurance?"

"Hogwarts tuition for three is utterly terrible," Martha Malkin told him, shaking her head as though still in disbelief. "I'd love to be only paying for one. And such a cute one, too!"

And from next door, to the right, the Elrics said with relieved expressions that he was nothing like the old owners of the house.

"They were loony, all of them. Loud noises all through the night. We were sure happy to see them leave, but then the house stayed open for years. We thought no one would buy it until you came," said Mrs. Elric before cooing over Teddy and inviting them both for dinner the following week.

As the many dwellers of Phoenix Lane called on them, owl-order furniture kept coming and coming, along with dishes and other household necessities. Harry ordered himself a garden kit, thinking it might be a good way to spruce up the view. He hadn't liked gardening as a kid living with the Dursleys, but now that he had gotten older and had a lot more free time, he liked the idea.

By the time the last visitor came, Harry was well-versed in the art of greeting a new neighbor. First, one of the family members or the whole family would come over with a homemade dish, usually a pie or casserole. Then they would sit down for tea, ask questions about why he'd moved there, coo over Teddy, gossip about the neighborhood, and invite him and his "darling child" to dinner. Harry couldn't say he enjoyed the attention, but he was happy to be accepted in the community.

All this made his last visitor all the more strange.

At around ten in the morning, the visitor knocked on the door. She looked middle-aged, which made her around sixty to seventy years old by Harry's novice wizarding age estimation.

"Hello," he greeted. Harry was ready to accept whatever edible offering she brought when he noticed she wasn't carrying anything. Nor did she look very happy, especially when she began speaking in an annoyed tone.

"I assume you're the new neighbor?"

"Yes?" Harry wondered what he'd done to annoy her.

"Good. Listen up: If you disturb my sleep, which is between eight in the evening and eight in the morning, I will sue."

Harry gaped. "Excuse me? You can't just assume—"

"You're young and probably have some young wife, and young people are loud."

Harry wasn't proud to say he slammed the door in her face.

"Hmph, and rude, too!" she called from the other side of the door.

Harry leaned against the door, gobsmacked, and listened to her walk away. All in all, having only one nasty neighbor wasn't bad at all—but the nerve, really! And then he spent a long moment hoping he wasn't becoming his aunt, because that was something out of his worst nightmares.

.

His next meeting with the woman, a few days afterwards, wasn't very much better. He was outside, planting flowers and wondering about how well they'd grow, as it was quite late to be planting anything, but the flower beds looked terribly bare without anything in them. Nearby, Teddy was playing in their newly constructed sandbox in the back yard. Harry had a feeling he was once again attempting to cover a long-suffering Crookshanks in sand. And that was when the Grinch, as he'd taken to calling her in his head, stalked through the yard next door.

Brilliant, Harry thought. She lived right next door. He'd wondered who lived to his left, since he'd received a visitor from all the other nearby houses except for that one. It was just his luck.

Two decades of the Dursleys' "must be polite to your neighbors" training warred with utter dislike, but Harry didn't want a feud with his next door neighbor. So with a gusty sigh he called, "Good morning!"

The woman looked at him, scowling, but answered, "Morning."

Harry decided she wasn't a morning person—or an anytime person—and was about to leave and let her pull weeds in peace when another person exited the side door of the house. The two women were about the same age, but this one had a wide smile on her face.

"Hello, Mr. Lupin!" she called across the lawn, then came over to shake hands. "It's good to finally meet you! My name is Fannis Prince, but please call me Fanny. I would have introduced myself earlier, but I've been away to visit family for the past two weeks." She leaned in, winking, and said, "I think Bathilda's in a sour mood because she's had to do all the household chores and deal with my cats."

"Bathilda?" Harry asked, suddenly remembering exactly how he'd met Bathilda Bagshot the last time. Well, at least she wasn't a man-eating snake this time, he consoled himself.

Fanny nodded. "Bathilda Bagshot. She's written a history book, maybe you've read it?"

"Yeah, I have." One of the many she would write, anyway. He wondered which book it was, and thankfully Fanny continued talking without asking Harry what his favorite part was. The next time Harry went to Diagon Alley, though, he grabbed a copy of Early Wizarding History, 1200 to 1400. It wouldn't hurt to try to get on Bathilda's good side; he wanted to raise Teddy in the best possible way, and that meant personal grudges had to come second.

.

Harry spent the next two weeks painting, adding furniture to his house and coaxing his garden to grow, and when the bedroom next to Teddy's was in good shape, he knew he was ready to act. He left Teddy at the day care center he scoped out when he visited Gringotts and apparated to one place he never wanted to visit again: Little Hangleton's graveyard.

Memories colored his perception of the graveyard, and he had to stop and close his eyes for a moment to stay the reminders of his humanity. He could still die, and he knew that better than most. Marvolo and Morfin Gaunt were dangerous people. Hell, Merope Gaunt was dangerous herself. It would take one slip of a love potion to bind his mind to her wishes.

But—that memory of Merope cringing at her father's hand, of being choked by an uncaring person who should be her protector, haunted him. He couldn't stand aside while she was being abused, even if she was Voldemort's mother. He could help her. He could help the world by helping her.

But being a father had taught him that he couldn't put himself in dangerous situations anymore. Teddy needed him, now more than ever since they knew no one in this time. He couldn't die on him, and so he had to do this carefully.

His story set, Harry headed to the Gaunts' hut. Maybe he had been unobservant at seventeen, or naive, but Harry didn't remember the hut being so terrible. When he'd first seen it, Dumbledore had been with him, and things never seemed as bad with Dumbledore there. Staring at it with new eyes, he realized it was only the size of a tiny room, and it looked as though it was falling apart.

He knocked on the door, avoiding the snake nailed to it. Morfin Gaunt answered.

"Yeah?" he said with a sneer. It was the only expression Harry had ever seen on him.

"I'd like to talk to your father," Harry said. When Morfin didn't move, he added, "It's important."

Morfin walked back, scowling, and kicked a lump of blankets at the far side of the hut. A girl's whimpers sounded. Harry clenched his teeth, hoping he wasn't projecting his anger but knowing he wouldn't be able to help his expression. No decent person could look at this scene and feel nothing.

"Get up and find Dad," Morfin ordered and Merope quickly left the hut, brushing past Harry on her way out. She didn't look up as she went by. Both she and Morfin had a strong smell, and the hut wasn't any better.

They stood in the doorway in silence, as Morfin didn't invite Harry into the house, until Merope came back with an older man: Marvolo Gaunt. He carried a dead rabbit, likely the family's meal, and sneered at Harry.

"What do you want?" he asked. "You interrupted my hunting." He handed the rabbit to Merope and ordered her to skin and cook it.

"My name is Harry Lupin," he began, eying Marvolo wearily. He was carrying both a knife and a wand, and Harry didn't trust him with either. Blood dripped from the knife. "And I would like to adopt your daughter."

Marvolo snorted. "Fat chance of that. What do you want with a Squib like her?"

"I've always wanted a daughter," Harry said, not letting himself become wistful. He did want one, and this life he led wasn't likely to give him one anytime soon, but he barely wanted to adopt Merope Gaunt. He didn't let his feelings show. "I have a son who will be my heir, but I've wanted a daughter to love and spoil for a long while. Then, a few weeks ago, I thought to visit my distant cousins, and noticed you had a girl. You don't want her, nor do you treat her well. Let me adopt her."

"I treat her like she damn well deserves to be treated!" Marvolo hissed. "How dare you — Confringo!"

Harry yelled a shield charm just in time, then stared at the snake and hissed back, "I'll treat her a sight better than you would."

Marvolo snorted, baring his teeth at Harry like an animal. "Admit it, you want to marry her. Good breeding, obedient enough. You saw her and thought she'd be the perfect wife."

Harry clenched his teeth. "I want to make sure my cousin—" a claim they couldn't disprove, since they'd just seen him speaking parseltongue "—is well looked after, not abused by her father and brother."

"Five hundred Galleons or nothing," Marvolo bargained. "Not that she's worth a Knut."

It rankled him, but Harry agreed; he couldn't afford to have an all-out fight with not one, but two madmen. "Fine. As you give me your word you'll never seek her out again," Harry said and pulled out a blank check. Signing off on the exchange, he handed it to Marvolo.

"Girl!" Marvolo called, grabbing her as soon as she came in sight. "This is your new husband."

Harry sucked in what he wanted to say and only said, "Goodbye, Mr. Gaunt."

The man grinned, showing crooked yellow teeth. He didn't seem accustomed to smiling, though, because his smile was just too feral. "Take the Squib and leave, Mr. Lupin, before I change my mind."

Harry took his eyes off the Gaunt men to reach for Merope, but the second he lowered his wand, Morfin tackled him. Harry's breath was forcibly drawn out as Morfin got ready to bash his head into the ground, but his choked, "Expelliarmus!" blew Morfin away. He slumped against the side of the hut while Harry kept his wand on Marvolo. This time, Harry didn't look at Merope. Instead he kept his eyes of Marvolo and Morfin, and said, "Will you come with me?" without looking at her.

She put her hand in his outstretched one and Harry disapparated them.

They reappeared at the Little Hangleton graveyard, where Harry sat down with his back against the gravestone of an eighteenth century Tom Riddle.

"I thought you were taking me away," Merope accused. "This is nearby. Are you leaving me here?"

Harry couldn't tell if she was pleased or disappointed with the thought of him abandoning her. It made him want to second-guess each and every one of his decisions, made him think things he had no intention of doing. If Merope weren't alive, she wouldn't be able to give birth to Tom Riddle. But if Harry killed her, he would never be able to look himself in the eye. Worse, he would never be able to look Teddy in the eye and try to teach him how to live a moral life.

"No," Harry said. "I need to have a talk with you, and this place will remind me of certain things I need to remember."

Like that little Merope, unattractive and suspicious but oddly sweet, was the mother of the man who killed Harry's classmate in front of his eyes at this very graveyard. Harry didn't put much stock in the concept of bad blood, but Merope had the worst, and Harry couldn't trust her to be an angel in his home. Sex with someone under the influence of a love potion was rape, and her father likely hadn't taught her any useful morals.

"I'm not going to marry you," he said. "I don't care what you heard or what your father said to you, I'm not interested in you in that way. I visited once undercover and realized you were treated badly, and I couldn't let a relative of mine stay in a home like that." No matter who she could grow up to be, he couldn't knowingly let her be abused. And in a twisted way, she was family—his artificial relation with Voldemort, caused by him using Harry's blood, made Merope Harry's pseudo-mother for a few years. They were also more distantly related to the three Peverell brothers' parents, about sixteen generations apart. Harry barely considered that a relation.

He continued, "But I have a son who I care about, and I want to make a few things clear. You will not harm him in any way. You will not try to harm me in any way, and that includes coercion spells and love potions. I would like you to live with me, and if you can't follow those two rules, I will put you in a house far away with some money and make sure you can't harm anyone ever again. Have I made myself clear?"

She nodded. "What will my duties be in your home?"

"Learn magic, for one. I don't believe you're a Squib, but even if you are, you should find out for sure. Keep your room tidy. Take care of Teddy occasionally if I can't."

"That's all?" she asked incredulously. "I just don't understand why you rescued me. You didn't have to. You don't need me."

"It was the right thing to do." He hoped that one day, she would understand that. And he hoped like hell that he hadn't just made a terrible decision.

He took her hand in his once more, and apparated them into the living room of Harry's new home. It was a stark contrast to Merope's family's hut: clean, homey, warm. Despite the warmth, Merope shivered under her ratty robes as she looked around the room.

Teddy greeted them with smiles and laughter, immediately wanting to be hugged by his new sister. Harry chuckled at Merope's gobsmacked expression. Maybe Teddy would be good with her, too. Harry separated them when Teddy tried to tug her over to his toys, and directed her to the third bedroom.

It was painted a soft blue, and held a bed, a table, a bookshelf with beginners' books on magic, and a dresser. Harry patted her on the shoulder when she seemed to be unable to speak, and pointed at the door leading to the bathroom.

"Thank you," she whispered, almost breathing out the word. Her expression was so grateful and helpless that Harry couldn't help abandoning some of the dislike he held for her. She was just a girl, after all.

.

The next morning, Harry stumbled out of bed, his mind full of fading dreams. Of the future, of his old family, of everything he'd given up to come back. And, everything he'd lost that made it necessary.

He heard hushed voices before he even came downstairs, lured by the smell of mystery and coffee. The coffee was in its pot, black and hot and ready, and the hushed voices were only Merope and Teddy. Teddy sat on the countertop, swinging his legs and chatting about the merits of cowboy toys, while Merope nodded and showed him how to make the perfect pancake.

In a second, Harry would walk inside, and tell Teddy his habit of climbing onto things would get him a broken leg, and tell Merope that she didn't have to, really. That she could never cook a single meal and still have a place in his home. But for now, he just smiled. He still wasn't sure if the horrors that occurred had been stopped for good. But now, he had hope, and that was worth something, at least.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
